Tis the Season
by cosyma
Summary: It wasn't love. It was a perfect illusion.


**'Tis The Season**

* * *

Two days before Christmas, they gather at Edward's house to exchange gifts, since he's the only one who has two parents who are almost never ever home at all.

Once they're all in his room, Jessica parades around, running her hands idly along the walls and the wood panels of the bookcase before flopping unceremoniously onto the bed. The way she presses her lips together makes him think she's holding secrets in her mouth.

"So where's your parents?" Mike asks, sitting on the floor and leaning back on his palms.

"Aren't they in NYC or something?" Jessica questions. "God, I need to go there—can you imagine the shopping? It has to be fabulous." She tosses her gift into Bella's lap. "Here, you first, Bella."

"Oh. Um, okay." Bella smiles a little nervously as she gently picks at the wrapping paper, turning the cylinder-shaped present over in her hands. It isn't until she has it halfway off that all the color from her face drains.

Poor girl. She never saw it coming.

"Don't you love it?" Jessica cackles, leaning forward excitedly.

"Jessica, you got me a…?"

"A vibrator, duh!" she finishes with glee. "Now that you and Mike have decided not to be prudes, it's time to have a little fun, don't you think?"

Bella is staring down at the object and looking like she's dying a little inside. Edward feels sorry for her. Ever since she gave it up to Mike at Lauren's party earlier this month, mostly due to Jessica's constant badgering and too much cheap beer. Mike just turns his head and stares at the wall like he's pretending none of this is happening.

For Jessica, Bella gives a framed photo of the two of them from homecoming. They are standing with their arms around each other, cheeks pressed together, faces smiling brightly. Jessica seems to like it more than Edward would have expected, since her tolerance for sentimentality has always been low.

He gives Jessica an expensive handbag she'd been coveting. Picking out her present was easy, since she'd made it blatantly clear that Edward get her the purse, or else. "Or else" usually translated into either no sex for a month, constant bitchiness, or being dumped by her. Again. Sometimes, all of the above. Mike's not too hard — he just picks up the video game that he's been talking about. Bella is the trickiest, since they're not really close or anything. He gives her a soft turquoise-colored sweater, since it looks like it's something she would wear.

In return, he gets booze and a set of funky shot glasses from Mike, and Bella gives him a dark blue journal and matching ball point pen.

"You said it was your favorite color," she explains, and blushes hard when he looks at her. He's surprised she had remembered something so small and obscure about him.

"Yeah, thanks," he mumbles, and sets it down on the comforter.

"So Jessica, what are you giving him?" Bella asks.

Jessica smirks and says, "I already gave it to him," before straddling his lap and wrapping her arms around his neck. "Isn't that right, baby?"

He pushes his palms against her hipbones and tries not to think about the last time they sat on this very bed like this. Tries not to think about how he had gone down on her and she ended up calling out a name that most definitely was not his. They'd ended up screaming at each other, and he'd called her a stupid slut and she'd raked her nails across his arm and made him fucking bleed before storming out.

Later, she swore that the whole thing had been a joke — she just wanted to see how he'd react, she'd never cheated on him, she was his.

Maybe one day he'd grow some fucking balls and just say enough is enough, goddammit and actually follow through instead of crawling back to her, begging to be let back in days later. Today, however, would not be that day.

She tilts her mouth down and kisses him, and he kisses her back, pushes his tongue into her mouth like he can extract her secrets that way, like it could allow him to lay her out bare for all to see, all those dark corners and shut doors and dirty little secrets. Even though he knows it doesn't work that way.

"Yup," he affirms as Jessica's mouth moves to his neck. "I have been filled with the holiday spirit."

Bella is staring because she always stares, like this kind of physicality is foreign to her, which it probably is.

Mike gives Bella some makeup thing and a bunch of roses, and she gives him some nice cologne, and they peck each other on the lips chastely, hands entangled. Sometimes, Edward thinks he'd prefer that kind of relationship — the genuine romance, the flowers and hearts and sweetness. But then he thinks about how Jessica's gift to him was a blowjob in the girls' bathroom last week, when they cut sixth, and then after he fucked her in the back of his car for another two hours.

Yeah, Edward can't kid himself. He's got the better deal.

* * *

 _Happy Holidays! xx_


End file.
